AOC Server Issues

Rubakai

With the announcement of AOC not doing Open Beta issues id just thought id see what everyone else would think on potential server issues.

 

Mine main concern is not the worry of them hiding an unfinished game. In my eyes no MMORPG can be released completely finished, not with the schedule they have and budget concerns etc that is not what bothers me. As long as they patch the game quickly and before people run out of things to do I understand and can live with that. Im also not interested in an open beta just so i can see the game before the launch (that is not what it is there for) and I will read a number of reviews before I purchase the game (that is what they are there for).

My main concern is do they have enough people to properly test the servers before retail. Im not talking about the thousands of people they use to fill one or two servers in closed beta to tell wether they can handle. Im talking tens of thousands of people playing at the same time all day. This cannot be tested without an open beta effectively. When this game comes to retail and tens of thousands of people are going to be logging on together and this game completely crashes Funcom will not have a leg to stand on in my eyes. This is the worry. People will backlash "should have had an open beta". Funcom will come up with their excuses but none of them will be good enough for me because they missed an opportunity for proper stress testing. Personally I do not want to see this happen. All MMO's have a certain amount of downtime at the beginning but this can be reduced.

 

I wish them the best of luck and I hope the game does well, I need a new MMO

howardb

You guys keep forgetting that Funcom has 7 years experience with MMO's. They've said several times that AoC is heavily based upon the net-code from AO. Nothing beats real-world experience. It's not like they're rookies. They have 7 years experience in running MMO-servers. This is the kind of experience other developers wish they could buy, but sadly can't be bought. The same goes for WAR. I don't expect many server related problems in that game either. They might be overwhelmed by the sheer force of subscribers compared to AO or DAoC, but neither of the devs for both games should as they both aim intensionally high.

You could also argue that the tech is too old today, but keep in mind that the engine behind the beautiful AoC is the same that's running AO. It's the Dreamfall engine. The net-code is tried and tested over several years and improved upon even further for AoC.

And now the howling chorus will start with "Yeah and we all know how the AO launch was". Yeah we do. It had it's share of problems for two months and it's been good ever since. Point two: Funcom has lost a lot of money because of the initial problems with AO. They're not about to re-do their errors and loose a lot of money on AoC as well. I've said it earlier and I'll say it again; a former error/failure is a stronger incentive for a future success than a former triumph. They won't do the same errors twice.

A.Blackloch

I also do belive everything will go more or less the way they planned it on Funcom, since they already got lots of experince on online games. There's no need for open beta. Maybe a couple weekend stress-tests before launch but nothing big.